Best of the Thesis Whisperer

27/09/2012 By
Thesis whisperer

Thesis Whisper     |   27 September 2012 The Thesis Whisperer has written a book.  Or, more precisely, in Inger  Mewburn's  own words, she’s compiled one out of blog posts on the Thesis Whisperer site   It’s  up on Amazon for $3.99 AUD – a price point carefully calibrated to match the cost of a cup of coffee in Inger’s home town, Melbourne.   Inger says that a book provides a structured reading experience that a blog just can’t because it’s not sequential. I write on topics which interest me or which are prompted by reader requests and things which happen at work. So the posts tend to address different parts of the thesis writing endeavour. Compiling these posts … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research Tagged With: , , , ,

Vic govt rejects claims over Swinburne disability courses

27/09/2012 By
Peter-Hall-6288497

Victorian Government Newsroom   |   27 September 2012 The Victorian government has vigorously contested claims that Swinburne University will stop providing the Certificate I in Work Education as a result of funding changes in the May state budget.   Skills minister Peter Hall says that, as a result of those funding changes, the Certificate I in Work Education will actually now receive the highest hourly public subsidy of any vocational education course at $14 an hour, a 17% increase on the previous non-TAFE funding level.  The public subsidy for this course at Swinburne University increased as a result of those budget changes.  It did not decrease. Swinburne University recently … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Budget, Coalition policies, Vocational education & training Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Swinburne to axe course for students with special needs

27/09/2012 By

The Age    |    27 September 2012 Swinburne University will close a highly regarded course for people with disabilities, forcing some students to find alternative places to study.  The university will stop enrolling students for its work education course, which prepared them for basic workplace duties.  Swinburne will also scale back its transition education course, which many disabled students completed before enrolling in work education. TAFE director Linda Brown wrote to parents last month telling them that funding changes had affected Swinburne's ability to run its courses, although  the university management says it has begun talking to the government about the funding it … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Budget, Coalition policies, Swinburne University, TAFE, Vocational education & training Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

EIF seeks refuge from funding freeze

27/09/2012 By

The Australian    |    26 September 2012 The head of the Education Investment Fund advisory board, Phil Clark, has called on the Gillard government to protect the $500 million regional priorities round from any spending freeze. An announcement on successful bidders had been expected this month. But there are growing fears the funding round could be put on the backburner as the government's razor gang seeks savings to restore a budget surplus next year. Concern about the regional EIF round comes amid general angst that research funding is also at risk of being put on hold. See Go8 warns on research funding freeze … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Budget, Higher education policy, Regional Tagged With: , , , ,

IR the next TAFE battleground

27/09/2012 By
industrial relations

The Australian    |    26 September 2012 Industrial relations are set to become the key skills reform battleground as TAFEs around the country move to slash teaching costs to cope with rolling budget cuts and increased competition. Critics say cosy relationships with education unions have left TAFEs with "archaic" IR arrangements that are too inflexible for modern training.  Unionists say proposed changes will leave teachers no time to liaise with industry, update skills or develop courses. The conflict is playing out in four states, led by Victoria, where the government has allowed TAFEs to negotiate their own industrial agreements.  At least 11 of the 14 stand-alone … [Read more...]

Filed Under: AEU, TAFE Tagged With: , , , , , ,

OECD urges nations to boost spending on education

27/09/2012 By
OECD Logo

University World News    |    12 September  2012 Education at a Glance provides comparable national statistics about education for the 34 OECD member countries, as well as Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. The report includes indicators on public and private spending on education, tuition fees, adult participation in education, class sizes, teacher salaries and decision-making powers of schools, and an analysis of national examination systems and the criteria for attending tertiary education. Spending on education by countries around the world is rising but access to higher education remains unequal, says the OECD's Education … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Budget, International, OECD, Schools, Society, TAFE, universities Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Melbourne tackles society’s “grand challenges”

27/09/2012 By
research

University of Melbourne Newsroom     |      26 September 2012 The University of Melbourne says it is refocussing its research priorities to better address the major challenges facing the world and to increase its global research competitiveness.  Announcing its new strategic vision , University of Melbourne Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Jim McCluskey said the University will harness its research capability to address three “Grand Challenges” facing the world: understanding our place and purpose fostering health and wellbeing supporting sustainability and resilience. One of the major shifts in the strategy is to build precincts – bringing like-minded … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research, University of Melbourne Tagged With: , ,

Is a diploma still valued?

27/09/2012 By
LH Martin

Campus Review    |    17 September 2012 While there is still a strong demand for mid-level qualifications over the past few years there have been concerns  that diplomas are giving way to bachelor degrees in many fields.  Tom Karmel of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research says that the increasing demand for skills and knowledge is leading to the bachelor degree displacing the diploma as an entry level qualification to the labour market.  Similarly, research by Skills Australia and the National Institute for Labour Studies shows that workers with a highest qualification of diploma or advanced diploma are particularly likely to be working in roles that require a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Commonwealth policies, Conferences, Higher education policy, LH Martin Institute, NCVER, Qualifications, RMIT Tagged With: , , ,

…acceptable academic inquiry?

27/09/2012 By

The Australian     |    26 September 2012 An anti-vaccine campaigner doing her PhD at University of Wollongong has maintained her candidature despite implying the family of a child who died from whooping cough were liars.   Judy Wilyman has also linked autism with vaccines and recently questioned the value of the vaccine Gardasil in the fight against cervical cancer. The arts student's thesis, which she has been working on for more than four years, is titled "A critical analysis of the Australian government's rationale for its vaccination policy". On her website, Vaccine Decisions (which we have been unable to locate), she updates"news" and shares her thoughts on the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research, Society, University of Wollongong Tagged With: , , , ,

Reprehensible elegy…

27/09/2012 By

The Australian     |   26 September 2012 A scholar and teacher of French who wrote a satirical poem to cheer up a sacked colleague upset a few colleagues who considered his poetic reflections defamatory.  He ended up having his own services dispensed with by the University of New England.  After a flurry of letters and meetings, UNE has said goodbye to its mostly unpaid French lecturer Jim Nicholls, saying his poem was "calculated to bring senior officers of the university into disrepute". He wrote the poem for music academic Jan-Piet Knijff, who was headhunted from New York in 2010 and shown the door in March after some students mounted a petition accusing him of a classical … [Read more...]

Filed Under: General, Uncategorized, University of New Engalnd, university staffing Tagged With: , , ,
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